Tainted Image

Chapter 1

                  

Glazed eyes, empty hearts. Buying happy from shopping carts. Nothing but time to kill, sipping life from bottles. Tight skin, bodyguards. Gucci down the boulevard. Cocaine, dollar bills and my happy little pill. Take me away. Dry my eyes, bring colour to my skies, my sweet little pill. Take my hunger. Lie within, numb my skin.

The music blasts into my ears as I walk into the school building. I look around at the people as I take a seat at the lunch tables. God, shut up! I mentally shout at the people screaming at the friends they just saw yesterday. I turn up the music to tune everyone out.

Someone bumps into me and I look back to see a girl going to her friends. I open my phone to go on Tumblr. The first thing that opens up is a description of a whole bunch of drugs, their effects, and their repercussions. It talks about magic mushrooms, LSD, alcohol, marijuana, MDMA/ectasy, cocaine, DMT, opioids, pills, and mescaline. How ironic.

I pull out my book once I finish reading the tumblr post. I had just gotten to a good part on the train when it was my stop. I was reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. For your sake, I won't spoil anything. But it's a great read.

I read about five pages before I hear the bell ring. I look at my watch and quickly place my book back into my bag carefully so it doesn't rip the pages. I run up the stairs to my locker, quickly grab my English binder, and walk briskly to class so the vice principal doesn't yell at me. I walk into class just as the second bell rings. It doesn't really matter if I get to class on time or five minutes late because our teacher doesn't technically start class till 9:13 though class is supposed to start at 9.

Throughout the school day, I barely pay attention because I keep thinking about my book and the characters in it and their relation to me.

Later that night, I finish the book at home and text my friend, Emerence. I open Instagram on my phone and see that she's posted something recently. It's some artsy picture. I click open her page and scroll down. She has this great picture with her hair natural and curly and it's in black and white. I love her natural hair. She's so beautiful. I think to myself. She responds to my text and we talk for hours about the book. She was the one who recommended it to me.

So I've been thinking, I tell her.

About what? She asks.

Us I think.

Me, I say.

What happened?

I like this girl, I tell her.

Really?

Yeah.

Tell me about her.

She's beautiful. Her natural hair is gorgeous and I just want to hold her hand. That's it. Nothing more. Just hold hands. I want to run my fingers over her soft skin. We've never hugged. Not once- at least, not that I can remember.

After hours of talking, we finish talking about the girl. I half hope she knows it's her and half hope she doesn't. I don't know. I'm scared. I've never liked a girl before. And what do I do if my parents find out? What then? They'd probably kill me. Or rather, my dad would. My mom would be confused and definitely disappointed. I'm supposed to be the "good girl." What happened to the girl who wouldn't do anything her sister did?

So to throw a whole bunch of information at you to help you understand things, I'll just list things.

1) My parents are Christian and don't support homosexuality or anything of the sort.

2) I'm Christian, too, so I've grown up with the same ideals.

3) I'm still figuring things out.

4) Things aren't figured out, but one thing is for sure - I like Emerence.

I've never felt this way before. It's new. It's weird. I mean it feels the same way as liking a guy. Only, it's with a girl instead.